by C. Gockel
Bone-Crusher’s hackles rose. The dire wolves were self-aware, sentient creatures by human and, more importantly, The One’s definition. Yet they were treated as chattel. This must be remedied.
Swift-foot glanced back at him in alarm. “We’ve tried to convince them. Whenever we convince a keeper, they are sent away.” The thoughts were accompanied by more sadness and anger, almost the same sort that went with loss of a pup. They were pack animals, like Volka. They bonded to their human keepers.
Swift-foot paused. “Who is this pup, Volka, you keep thinking of? You don’t have pups.” Her blue-gray eyes narrowed. “You don’t seem quite yourself, Brother.”
Bone-Crusher-Carl half sat on his haunches. “I’m not quite myself,” he admitted, since lying was impossible. “A spirit has possessed me; that is how I knew how to open the gate. But the spirit wishes our people only good. Deliverance from the thing that reeks of death and, later, freedom.”
Swift-foot’s tail swiped tentatively to the side. “Fighting the thing feels right. Even though it is frightening. It will try to kill us eventually anyway.” She growled. “Better to go out fighting.”
Bone-Crusher’s tail wagged enthusiastically. “Exactly right! I love carnivores.” He thought of Volka then, attacking men aboard the Leetier with a broom handle, a cry of rage on her lips, yellow eyes glowing.
Swift-foot cocked her head, but then jogged to catch up with the others. They had reached a cobblestone walkway that, at a whiff, Bone-Crusher knew was only for bicycles and feet, nothing motorized.
“Will I meet this … adopted … pup?” Swift-foot asked him when he caught up to her.
“I hope so,” said Carl. He caught a whiff of the Dark—or rather, caught a feeling of it. The air was clean. “But first things first.”
A few paces away, Father raised a paw, and his fur stood up. Pointing with his muzzle across the street, he said, “It’s in that den, over there.”
Bone-Crusher trotted over to Father, and took in the “den,” a massive mansion, set off from the footpath. Bone-Crusher-Carl sent his consciousness into the complex. There were four Infected within.
“What do we do now, Bone-Crusher and Spirit?” Mother asked. She already knew about the matter from silent communication with Swift-foot. It was convenient that the whole pack knew that already. He loved carnivores and telepathy. “We kill them with our minds. Similar to how we opened the gate,” he replied. The prospect didn’t evoke any internal turmoil in this body. The dire wolves may have been taught to fear humans, but they didn’t regard the Infected as human. Another convenience.
“Never fear, I’ll teach you how. And then I’ll teach you how to—” He sniffed and laughed, a panting wolf laugh. “Oh, you already know how to set fires with your mind. Excellent! Father, if you don’t mind, I will lead for a bit.”
The older wolf nodded, and Bone-Crusher-Carl carefully checked the path for signs of humanity or Infected, and then slipped across and into the wooded grounds beyond. The Dark’s presence made every hair on his body stand on end. The inside of his nose itched terribly, a psychosomatic response to the Dark’s proximity. Paradoxically, the thought of killing the Infected via a telekinetically induced bursting of their carotid arteries made his mouth water.
The mansion was on fire. All the Infected were dead within. One of the younger wolves was howling victoriously.
Bone-Crusher was sitting back, tail thumping, when the waves shifted. An instant later, it wasn’t just Swift-foot beside Bone-Crusher—it was Swift-foot-Mao-the-Illustrious.
Bone-Crusher-Carl wagged his tail faster, and Swift-foot-Mao shook herself. “Well done, Carl.”
It was a nice thing to say, and out of character for the Mao he knew. But she was tired. Bone-Crusher saw in her mind that she’d just finished rooting out another Infected cell in System 5.
“You had better go, Carl,” Mao said. “It’s almost time for you to recover the last of the Skimmer Captains with your Hatchlings, and it could be dangerous.” Behind her words was a deep sea of sympathy for him. Bone-Crusher-Carl felt the memory of Sergeant Davies’s hand on Mao’s shoulder and saw a dream of Davies giving a kitten to the ghost of his wife.
“Humans are sometimes wave aware in their last moments,” Mao said, wolf ears curling. “I wasn’t expecting that. I don’t suppose it could be so for FET12, 6T9, or James, but for Noa perhaps?”
Bone-Crusher swallowed. Mao wanted to be sure he’d be there for his Hatchlings’ last minutes.
Mao continued, “And maybe Volka is strong enough that she might find a new host with your help?”
Bone-Crusher-Carl looked up at the smoky sky, nose pointed toward Odessa. Mao was giving him a great gift. Still, he hesitated. The body he possessed was holding on to him.
“Don’t worry, Bone-Crusher-Carl-Hsissh. I’ll stay here and make sure the island is purged of any Infected.” She growled. “And I will lead the uprising that forces the Shinar people to acknowledge the dire wolves' wave-superiority and give them their freedom.”
The single heart in Bone-Crusher-Carl’s dire wolf form beat fast. His presence in this body made him want to be here for that, but he also wanted to be with his pups—his Hatchlings.
Giving a sad wag of his tail, he touched Mao’s nose. “Thank you.”
Snapping at him, her ears went back. “I’m not getting soft. I’m being completely strategic. Your presence may help them succeed. Their success may determine our survival.”
Bone-Crusher didn’t argue with her. He let the part of him that was Carl slip out of Bone-Crusher’s body. He heard Bone-Crusher the dire wolf whispering, “Thank you, mighty spirit. I will aid Swift-foot-Mao!” but was too far away to respond.
When he reentered his werfle body, he found himself on FET12’s lap. The child ‘bot was sitting on Volka’s bed, gently stroking him between the ears. “I know Volka said Solomon said that Carl will come back, but even if he doesn’t, we still have to take care of him.”
“Of course we have to,” 6T9 replied. “But you shouldn’t take him down to breakfast. He already bit you; if he bites a human, they might die.”
Breakfast? Carl lifted his nose, and his whiskers went forward at the smell of bacon as though they could taste it.
“We could milk his poison,” FET12 suggested.
Carl coughed. His speech-to-ether device crackled. “Err ... none of that, please.”
6T9 was suddenly in his face, and the delicious scent of bacon was crowded out by the scent of metal, silicon, plastic, and artificial hormones that did nothing for his werfle self. “Carl!”
“Is that you, Carl?” FET12 asked.
He heard Volka’s fast footsteps. “Carl! You’re back!”
And Noa was suddenly pushing 6T9 aside. Her dark brown eyes were on his. “We were worried about you.”
“Yes, where were you?” FET12 asked.
Carl started to explain, “Well, I—” And then he silently considered the rest of the explanation. —Snuck into Shinar’s most exclusive resort, assassinated four Infected, committed arson to destroy the evidence and sterilize their bodies and surroundings, and set in motion a rebellion that will put a sentient species on the path to freedom …
Volka poked her head over Noa’s right shoulder, and James poked his head over Noa’s left. 6T9 leaned into Noa. FET12’s hand had paused.
Carl blinked. Volka and Noa were very worried. Their emotions made his whiskers tremble. James’s, 6T9’s, and FET12’s Q-comms were flashing madly. They were likely worried, too. But he had never been in any danger; he could safely leave his body at any time. They were the ones in real danger.
Smacking his lips, he yawned and stretched. “Staff meeting. I was at a staff meeting.”
Noa’s nose wrinkled adorably, and he couldn’t help remembering the little girl with pigtails he’d met in the Luddeccean wilderness. Volka’s jaw sagged. James, 6T9, and FET12 cocked their heads at the exact same angle.
“The One … have staff meetings?” Volka as
ked.
“A staff meeting that was so important you left your body?” 6T9 asked.
“Sure,” Carl said. “Now where is that bacon?” Darting from FET12’s lap, he said, “After breakfast, I’m going to need a nap. All the boredom wore me out.”
There was a flicker of consternation among his human subjects-pups-hatchlings, but then their thoughts returned to their upcoming mission. As they should.
Carl was a wise and benevolent monarch, master, all-pack-leader.
13
Hunger Galactic
Republic Space
“Just the way we practiced it,” Noa said to Volka. They were both seated opposite each other, cross-legged on the floor on Sundancer’s bridge. There was a holomat between them. Carl was snoring nearby. The staff meeting had taken its toll.
Sixty was lying in the middle of the bridge next to an enormous anti-fighter-craft phaser weapon. His face was peeled half away and he’d hardlinked directly to the device. Sundancer’s hull was transparent and Odessa glowed softly below them.
Would today be the day they would do more than practice?
Volka wasn’t sure if the thought was hers or Noa’s, or both. There had yet to be attacks on Luddeccean or Galactican food transports. The Infected had to be getting hungry, and Jerome and Stratos were passengers aboard a food transport vessel headed to a research facility called Bethlem. Their “medical discharges” hadn’t gone through before the lightspeed ship departed.
Neither Bethlem nor the transport was particularly well guarded. The transport was regularly scheduled. It was an easy hit.
Volka’s ears went back. Those had been Noa’s thoughts.
“Just the way we practiced,” Volka repeated, trying to focus her mind. The holomat sprang to life. It showed the galaxy, Odessa’s solar system, and Bethlem’s system. Volka committed it as much as she could to memory. Closing her eyes, she sent the image of their destination to her ships and her captains. Their thoughts whispered back, as though the open channel necessarily had to flow two ways. Her captains were thinking exactly what Noa and Volka had been thinking moments ago: the Dark had to be hungry. This jump could be their first jump into a combat situation. This could be the day they confronted the Dark as a fighting force. The day they chased it back to the shipyard and found System Zero. This could be the beginning of the end …
Volka swallowed. It couldn’t be the end. After the shipyard was destroyed—if they could destroy it—they’d still be mopping up the Dark all over the galaxy.
Sixty spoke from the floor. “I’ve contacted Bethlem’s AI. It knows we’re coming.”
His words brought Volka back into the moment. She could only face one battle at a time. She dove into the minds of her ships and her captains again. “We’re ready,” Volka said, picturing the formation she wanted to emerge in on the other side. The ships followed her thoughts; her captains did too, and for a moment, there was nothing between them but one shared goal … and then the ships turned to light.
When they were whole again, there was a pause. The ships were still opaque, but Volka saw through her ships’ “eyes.”
“In formation,” she said proudly. 6T9’s anti-fightercraft phaser cannon slipped through the floor, just as dirt and debris had slipped through when Sundancer had scooped Sixty, Carl, and Volka off of Libertas’s icy surface. It was like watching something sink into a bowl of cream. From the floor, Sixty said, “Ready to fire.” Any non-living thing could slip through the floor—androids and robots included, although it was a power drain for them.
It was a move that they hadn’t even known they could do before leaving the Republic—nor had they known the combat formation they were in. Noa suspected the Republic hadn’t wanted the Skimmers to be combat ready. The Skimmers were not loyal to the Republic; they were loyal to Volka and their captains, and that was dangerous. Noa suspected, by the same token, that they’d never wanted Bracelet’s particle to be recovered. Bracelet was an independent AI who’d already breached Fleet protocols and orders.
From the captains of the Skimmers came an echoing, “Ready to fire,” and through the waves came a cheer and another ripple: a desire to fight from all but Dr. Patrick. There was bloodlust, but also exhaustion. So many of her captains and their crews wanted the fighting to begin so that it could be over. She whispered to the ships and their crews, “Well done.” They were arranged in three vertical circles of five ships each. The ships’ topsides were orientated to the center of the circle. Inside that protective circle were the captainless ships: Farsong, Jerome’s ship; and Firewatcher, Stratos’s ship. Sundancer was also in the center but she was farthest forward.
“In position and fully armed,” Volka said. In her heart, she felt Sundancer’s pride and the elderships’, too.
The local ether must have been established because voices crackled over the holo, echoing Volka’s words.
Volka let her eyes flicker open. The ship was still opaque. The hardlink from the weapon was snaking from the floor into Sixty’s skull. His eyes were closed. He could see the scene outside through the cannon’s sights, but Noa and anyone not a captain telepathically linked to a ship or hardlinked to a cannon could only see through the holo. At the moment, the holo was only stars. One particularly bright one that was their destination was at the center.
“Can the ships sense the Dark?” Noa asked. She spoke the words calmly, but Noa wasn’t calm. The strings between her and the universe were humming with tension.
Volka sent the question to the elderships and felt them extending their senses through the waves. She saw what they saw, strings spinning through the void, denser around matter, spindly further away. Here and there, tiny specks of light with exploding tendrils would spring into existence or blip away. Natural quantum teleportation, Sixty had suggested when she’d described it, the sort used in the fusion weapons and the beam James had used to wake the Dark. There were plenty of strings, even so far from Bethlem, but no folding of space that she associated with the Dark.
Opening her eyes, not knowing when she’d closed them again, Volka answered Noa’s question. “We can’t sense the Dark.”
She felt a tug, closed her eyes, and saw dense masses of strings stretching out from a point perhaps three hundred kilometers behind them, gaining fast, denser streams of strings in their wakes. They were not on a collision course, but still, she gasped at the speed of their approach and their sheer size.
“What is it, Volka?” Noa asked, waves rippling with her concern.
“Supply transport should be leaving lightspeed now,” 6T9 said.
Volka blinked and tore her attention from the waves to the minds of her captains peering through their sights. “Oh ... It’s just the transport ship and a few fighters, but they’re not Infected. They came on fast.” Regular vision was easier to understand. Things were where they were, not at the center of densely packed tangles of strings that were fuzzy around the edges. And things had shapes that made sense in the “real world,” even if the messy strings, according to Sixty, described the quantum universe more accurately.
“Jerome and Stratos’s transport had an escort,” Sixty added. Volka noted that the new arrivals were a large, boxy transport vessel and two small warships, barely larger than single-man fighter craft. The escort ships were probably as small as lightspeed-capable vessels could be.
“You’re sure they aren’t Infected?” Noa asked, this time making the waves vibrate with consternation.
Volka’s ears twitched. She lifted her nose as though she could smell them through the vacuum. She smelled only Sundancer’s interior—and that smelled like Noa, Sixty, the weapons, and the crew in the aft compartments so they wouldn’t distract Volka. Just thinking of the crew made her “see” that Dixon was running a diagnostic on their weapons and gear. He thought they’d see combat today. Most of the Skimmers’ crews were now System 11 Guardsmen, but Dixon, even though he wasn’t a captain, had accepted Gate 1’s offer of a medical discharge. Volka couldn’t believe tha
t he’d done it. He couldn’t believe it, either. As he ran his diagnostics, he wondered if maybe he’d imagined what had happened during the fight at the wheel world—that feeling of connection. Maybe he really was experiencing some strange reaction to radiation, just like his medical discharge said.
“Volka?” Noa asked again.
Volka wrenched herself from Dixon’s thoughts. “No … it’s fine. I don’t smell anything.”
Noa smiled wryly at the description of smell but didn’t think Volka was stupid for it. She understood the nose wrinkling, vomit-inducing stench of the Dark that Volka and Carl experienced was a psychosomatic response to its presence.
The Skimmers’ captains echoed her over the ether. “My ship says they’re all fine.”
Noa rapped her hand meditatively on her knee, thinking, “It couldn’t be that easy, could it? But the Dark has to be hungry.” Aloud, the admiral said, “Let’s head to Bethlem. Farsong and Firewatcher need to dock. Approach at Mach 1.”
Volka nodded, translating that thought to Sundancer. The other captains did likewise.
“Transmitting our codes via lightbeam,” Sixty said.
A thought rippled through the waves from Ramirez. “Can anyone hear me? Bubbles says you can hear me through her and the other ships, like she’s a relay … But I’m not really sure—”
“I hear you,” Rhinehart replied telepathically, her thoughts echoed by her ship.
“Gotcha,” said another Marine. There was a chorus from the other captains … except Young.
Volka blinked. “Me too,” she whispered, her curiosity piqued. What was so important Ramirez didn’t want to say it over the ether?